


August 2018, Los Angeles

by germanjj



Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [4]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Boys In Love, First Time, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, like very slow, oblivious boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: Sometimes love is so clear to see, visible for everyone around you, and yet you're not able to reach out and touch it, grab it, pull it towards you. It's like it's buried under clear glass.And sometimes, it's right there, even if you're miles away from each other.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657570
Comments: 11
Kudos: 79





	August 2018, Los Angeles

**Author's Note:**

> Based on public personas, not the real people. All made up. Don't like don't read.
> 
> Unbeta'd, English is not my first language
> 
> (sorry for this coming so late. hope you're all staying safe out there)

“Are you naked?” I burst out, laughing, and then even more when the image changes to a mattress and sheets as if Timmy had let go of the phone in a jump. I keep chuckling as I hear him say, “Sorry, sorry!” and then there’s the bustle of him moving on the bed, retrieving his phone.

“Don’t worry, man, didn’t see anything I haven’t seen before,” I mock him, enjoying the embarrassed flush on his face once he points the camera back to it. I had not actually seen anything but his naked chest and the curve of his hipbone, but I somehow like the idea of him believing that I did. 

“Wasn’t intending to flash you,” he chuckles, half embarrassment, half something else I can’t quite put my finger on. 

“You always naked when you call me?” I tease, wondering where the question is coming from or where I’m going with it. 

His blush deepens. “No, of course not.” 

His answer is sincere where I had expected him to laugh alongside me, and I don’t know what to do with it. “I’m kidding, don’t worry. So I guess it’s pretty hot in New York too?” 

“The worst,” he groans. “The AC broke yesterday. Have someone coming over later today to fix it.” 

“And that’s how you’re going to greet them?” I bite my tongue and briefly move the camera away from my face. What am I doing?

Timmy bites his lip, his eyes laughing when I see him again, quickly recovered from the seriousness of his tone before. “So what if I do?” he replies, “My decision how I greet my nice handyman. Nothing you can do about it, Hammer.” 

My throat is suddenly dry and I feel my eyes flicker nervously to Timmy’s. It is hard to read his mood through the screen. It is early morning in LA, which makes it midday in New York. Timmy and I have been on the phone for a good part of an hour, talking about everything and nothing really, just comfortably passing the time of what is going to be another hot summer day, restless and itching for something we both can’t lay a finger on. 

“Not gonna stop you,” I tell him, my voice suddenly lower, rougher. The mood shifts beneath us and I feel my fingers losing the grip on it.

He picks up on it. Of course, he does. 

He chuckles, a nervousness on his features I rarely see on him when we’re alone. I feel my neck heat up with a hideous mix of shame and excitement of being able to elicit a reaction like this from him.

“Armie,” he says, rubbing his hand over his face, breaking the moment. 

I don’t want him to break it. We’ve been flirting before this, innocent flirting, just for the fun of it, only to put what was left over from Elio and Oliver somewhere, like energy that clings to us but isn't really us, so we had found a playful and save way to exorcise that energy from our bodies. 

He blushes suddenly, his cheeks turning a gorgeous color, and he avoids my gaze, looking up to the ceiling instead. 

There’s not a second that I forget that he’s naked while he’s talking to me. 

I wonder what thought had come to his mind that made him blush. I bite my tongue to stop myself from asking but I don’t have to. 

“Now I can’t get the picture out of my head,” he says, his voice now lower too. 

“What picture?”

“Of me opening the door like this.”

His eyes drift back to the screen, meeting mine. 

A silence creeps between us, so much that I can hear his breathing and wonder if it is louder than usual. Heavier. And if I am breathing just as heavy as he does and if he can hear it too and detect from it what is going on inside my head. 

We’re looking at each other, trapped in the limbo of this conversation, and I try to find out if there is a question there, in his eyes, asking for permission for something I would have declined if asked out loud, which he knows and which I know and which he knows I know.

I wonder how to give permission over the phone like this, keeping the answer as silent and unsaid as the question, and then I think about what would come of it if I gave in.

I want to. 

That realization washes over me like ice cubes sliding down the back of my shirt and I break his gaze, buying time. 

The heat must have gotten to me, to him, must have messed with our minds to be thinking about this. People do crazy things because of the heat. 

“Who would you like to come through that door?” I hear myself ask, not recognizing my own voice like I’m watching someone foreign, a stranger using my body, my mouth to speak something I had hidden so deep inside me, that I sometimes forgot it was there. 

Timmy’s cheekbones do a mesmerizing dance and he grinds his teeth. 

“If you picture me opening that door, who do you see on the other side?” he asks, doing something mesmerizing with his voice too. 

Throat dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, I watch him watch me, waiting to do something, having just expertly thrown the ball back into my court. 

I don’t throw it back. I rub my face instead, as if to wake myself up or as if I can wipe away all those thoughts swirling around in my mind, trying to escape. 

“Look, Timmy,” I start, not meeting his eyes. “We should-. Maybe I should go. My mind is in a weird place right now and I better-, I better not-.” _‘Screw this up. Screw us up.’_

I meet his eyes then, for once, his expression not giving me anything. 

There’s silence again, and now I wonder if we have already gone too far anyway. If me retreating is like blowing out the candle while the whole house is already on fire.


End file.
